I use the AMD-64 version of Ubuntu/Kubuntu Linux at home and use Windows XP in a small business at work. Both operating systems seem to be about equally easy to use. Installing and properly configuring Ubuntu was much easier than with earlier versions of Linux that I had used a few years ago. It correctly identified all my hardware with the exception for having to use a GUI to select the correct printer driver. It automatically found my DSL modem and automatically connected me to the Internet. Whenever I insert a USB Flash drive or a CD, an icon for that device appears on the screen (like Windows). There are easy to use point and click GUIs for configuring things. It is not only easier to install and use but feels much more polished and refined than the older versions of Linux. So the Linux desktop is getting better.
When downloading new software, I use either Synaptic or Adept which are easy to use GUI front-ends to the apt-get package manager. I then select a program from the the amazing list of available free programs. Then after about a minute or so the free program has been downloaded and installed. To get new software for Windows XP, I typically need to drive to town, pay for the software, agree to the the stern threatening terms of the EULA, perhaps respond to a pop-up warning from my firewall, and then enter the activation code. With Windows software, I frequently also discover that other software I hadn't asked for was also installed. With Ubuntu Linux removing software with Synaptic or Adept is just as quick and easy.
The typical Linux desktop applications have also improved noticeably over the last few year. Five years ago, the typical Linux application had all the necessary essential features but did not seem like full featured commercial quality software. Now most of the major free Linux applications seems mature and full featured and equal to commercial software. Linux has never had a problem with viruses or spyware, so I don't need to bother with downloading virus signatures or scanning for viruses and spyware. When I had to reinstall Windows 2000 on a computer, I had to first spend about 10 hours looking for the original installation CD before I could even get started. With any version of Linux I would have just downloaded the free iso and burned a CD.
I realize that most commercial games are not offered in Linux versions. I am not a gamer so for me that doesn't matter to me. Some popular industry standard programs such as AutoCAD and Microsoft Office do not come in Linux versions but as a home user, I don't really care about that either. Most companies don't bother writing any Linux drivers themselves, so inevitably there is some hardware out there that is not supported in Linux. Perhaps, as the author suggests, KDE and Gnome developers should get moving, but at the moment I am a happy Linux user. Besides, for me, it isn't purely about who has the latest and greatest new features. I don't want to have to deal with Windows product activation or licensing issues. I recently heard a commercial on late-night talk radio where the Business Software Alliance (BSA) was encouraging people to call them to get a reward for reporting the use of unlicensed software by their employeers. They said that each violation could cost a company $150,000 per seat. I have read elsewhere, that just using licensed versions of Windows and Office and the original installation CD is not always enough to be avoid being accused of software piracy. They must also be able to find records showing where and when they purchased the software. I feel much more comfortable just using Linux instead and knowing that I have the freedom to use it however and wherever I please.
Most people have never even heard of Linux, and even if it is free and getting better all the time, I don't expect many people to give it a try anytime soon. There will continue to be a passionately loyal group of Linux desktop users. I value my freedom too much to even consider using Windows on my main home computer.
Several years ago, I used the Textmaker wordprocessor and the Planmaker spreadsheet on my old 266 MHz Pentium II. They are both now part of SoftMaker Office. The computer could dual-boot between Windows and Linux, so I used a version of Textmaker and Planmaker in each OS. Textmaker and Planmaker would start up in about a second or two, while OpenOffice would take about 40 seconds. Other Linux wordprocessors such as Abiword, Gnumeric and KOffice also opened up quickly on that computer. I also used the Codeweavers CrossoverOffice (now known as Crossover Wine) to run Office 97 under Linux. Office 97 was fast too. Only OpenOffice seemed to be so bloated, although it performed well and was nice once it finally eventually finished loading.
On the computer that I use now, I have a 2.2 GHz AMD 64 3800+ processor and OpenOffice opens up in about 9 seconds which is OK, I guess. Abiword or Gnumeric opens up in about 2 seconds. I am not sure if I will bother trying Softmaker Office on this computer or not.
Several years ago I got stuck with the unpaid job of doing a monthly newsletter for a small singles club. It was several pages long in multi-column format with clipart and photos. At one time or another I had used Microsoft Word 97, Microsoft Publisher, OpenOffice and Textmaker to do the newsletter. Of those choices, I found Word 97 to be the hardest to use. For one thing it was the only one that did not have frames. Without frames pictures and everything kept moving around whenever I edited anything. Sometimes I would backspace or delete a line and then the size of text in a nearby paragraph would also unexpectedly change. At times, the spacing would change slightly when I had created the newsletter on one computer and then later tried to print it out on another computer with a different version of Word, different printer and different printer driver. I never did like doing the newsletter with Word, but was quite happy doing it at various times with Microsoft Publisher, OpenOffice Writer and Textmaker. I never did reach a final decision about which of those other choices was best. I finally gave my unpaid job of doing the newsletter to someone else.
On several occasions, I have recently gone into a couple of local banks and while I was standing in line, I noticed the words "Windows 2000" on their screen savers. I have noticed the same thing at several other business as well. Apparently many businesses that have not felt the need to upgrade.
I forgot to mention an article from earlier this year, that talks about the European Commission's decision to fine Microsoft because of their lack of compliance
with the courts decision that they should make interoperability information available to competitors as a necessary precondition to
allow fair competition. Here is a link to info about that:
I have always had an interest in free software and alternative operating systems. Back in the 1990s, I heard about an interesting innovative operating system called BeOS. BeOS expressed a desire to peacefully coexist with Microsoft. Microsoft applied pressure to computer companies to not sell any computers with BeOS pre-installed, so BeOS went out of Business.
A few years earlier, in the 1990s, a company come out with their own DOS clone. From what I have heard, the Microsoft programmers designed some of the Microsoft products to give error messages when running under the DOS clone even when there really was not a problem.
Once Microsoft gained dominance they tried to squeeze out alternatives my fighting against open standards. They prefer to use proprietary standards instead. On various occasions they have also tried to take open standard and add proprietary extensions to them. That strategy is called extend, embrace and extinguish. Microsoft almost missed the Internet while promoting it's own proprietary alternatives. It almost missed the boat on that and Bill Gates quickly changed course. The Internet was created with open standards such as TCP/IP and HTML. Netscape was the dominate browser back then and the browser, to a large extent, controls what standards are used. If I remember correctly, I once read that Netscape even dared to publicly make some statements about the browser making the choice of operating system less significant. So somehow Microsoft had to destroy Netscape, perhaps, so that they could better influence what standards are used.
According to a website, "Lacking any decent technology of their own, Microsoft licensed the Mosaic web browser from Spyglass which they turned into Internet Explorer." That website then gos on to say "Microsoft royally screwed over Spyglass by licensing their code and then turning around and giving it away for free." By including it for free, pre-installed with Windows they destroyed Netscape and Spyglass. Since then Internet Explorer has become the dominant browser and is the only browser that in not standards compliant.
Sun Microsystems, developed Java a programming language what would allow programmer to create programs that are operating system dependent. Micrsoft bought a license for Java, from Sun, and then tried to add their own proprietary extensions to Java. Sun successfully sued them for violating the terms of the license.
About 6 or 7 years ago I stated using Linux which is a free open-source Unix clone operating system. There weren't many big advantages over Windows other than that Linux users didn't get computer viruses or infected by email mail attachments. It somehow more like I was more in control of what was installed on my computer and how it was configured. Furthermore, the GPL license allowed me to freely copy Linux and most of my free Linux programs from one computer to another. I no longer felt big brother Bill looking over my shoulder.
Since then, I Linux has improved to where Ubuntu Linux feels very polished complete and easy to use and install. Whenever I want some new program, I just use Synaptic to choose from the list of thousands of free programs and quickly download whatever free GPL licensed program that I want. I am totally happy with Ubuntu Linux.
Back about 5 or 6 years ago, I was still using Windows ME and Office 2000 on one of my computers. That computer had what I later realized was a slightly bad power supply
They arent allowed to drive for the same reason. Sure they could operate the pedals and even steer if they have someone telling them exactly where to aim the car and when to push but that doesnt make any sense--it just sounds idiotic.
That is how we did it back in the early 1970s when I was driving a Jeep in a blindfolded off-road race. The drivers were blindfolded and a navigator in the passenger seat had to tell the driver which way to turn or when to stop. It was a small 4 wheel drive club that had a low speed off-road race. I came in second because the girl who was my co-pilot and I agreed ahead of time exactly what phrases such as "slightly to the left" or "hard left" meant. The vehicles were all in low range going slowly and one vehicle at a time. The one with the best time one. One person ran into a tree while traveling at about 1 MPH, but no damage was done to his SUV or the tree. The person who laid out the course won with his wife acting as navigator. I do have excellent eyesight, I was just blindfolded at the time.
This is not to say that I am wildly fond of the idea of blind people shooting (maybe it's ok). As a teenager, in Southern California, I had already been shot at by a hunter who shot at everything that he heard or saw move. I was about 200 feet from the garage for our house and about 30 feet from our small well building. I stumbled over some broken glass and as I landed on the ground, a hunter started shooting towards me but missed. I'm not sure if he ever saw what he was shooting at or not. I won't bother with the other details. Suffice it to say that, when someone is hunting without permission on private property, 200 feet from the owners house, they should not be shooting in the direction of buildings while while firing carelessly at every sound or movement they hear in the brush. Our house was clearly visible above me on the hilltop. Unbelievably, I also had a similar experience when the neighbors grade school age boy almost shoot me with his BB rifle. In that case, he too, was aiming roughly in the direction of our nearly house.
That is not intended as criticism of responsible careful hunters. But, after those two experiences, it took a number of years for me get over my anger at hunters. It didn't help when on one occasion, my dog, and on another occasion the neighbors dog got caught in steel jawed traps which had been set for coyotes not far from our houses. That was back in the late 1960s. He never did catch any coyotes, just two neighborhood dogs. Idiots like that give hunting a bad name.
Make sure that the web cam can also see what is on the floor too. He could watch for puddles of water on the floor from a broken pipe or leaky roof. He could also see if rat droppings are starting to appear on the floor. Thousands of rat droppings on the carpeting and furniture would be a real mess. I have seen that happen in a car and in a truck. He might even see a rat or mouse on the web cam now and then. Perhaps he might even catch a glimpse of a burglar. The thermometer should have a large easy to read display.
Be sure to also remove food from the refrigerator before leaving. I have seen a refrigerator that failed while someone was gone and thousands of maggots ended up crawling up the sides of the refrigerator and died stuck to the walls, shelves, roof, drawers and crevices of the refrigerator. Two other people told me that have seen the same thing. It was unbelievably disgusting, so take the food out before leaving for a few months.
I am not sure about houses, but draining the water pipes would not be adequate to protect against freezing because on horizontal pipes there can be low sections that still remain full of water. People that own motor homes and trailers know that they need to do more than just drain the water to properly winterize an unoccupied trailer. With an RV they usually drain the water and then (if I am not mistaken) somehow blow propelyneglycol antifreeze through the pipes. They also do some kind of bypass to the water heater. Propelyneglycol antifreeze is used because it is less toxic than ethylyneglycol antifreeze.
I know you are talking about a house, but in the case of an RV it is not necessary to winterize it when someone is living in the RV. As long as the heat is on at least slightly, the pipes won't freeze. On the water hose coming into a trailer they usually wrap it with an electric heat tape and split-foam insulation. Most heat tapes say not to use them on anything other than metal pipes, but people do that anyway. I am not sure about houses. I live in Arizona and am not an expert on cold weather although I do live up in the mountains.
Perhaps you could set up a Apache webpage server with a webcam pointed at a large thermometer on the wall. Make sure that you set it up so that you can also see if any water is running along the floor or if of rat droppings are starting to appear on the floor. Then you could go to your webpage everyday to see what the temperature is. On the webpage don't tell everyone that this is my unoccupied house at a certain address which perhaps has valuables inside. Perhaps passwords or VPN technolgy could be used to limit access to the webpage. Somehow I doubt that is how most people in places like Minnesota do it though
I recently noticed a large puddle of water in front of an unoccupied nearby small business building. When I looked closer I saw water running from under the front door. We had had our first cold weather the day before, so their pipes must have frozen. I left a message on the owners answering machine.
Don't forget about rats. In my neighborhood, I have seen what rats can do to old cars and trucks that are not being used regularly. A few months go by and then the owner looks inside and see the carpeting covered with thousands of rat droppings. Perhaps some rat poison in an abandoned house or car might help.
"Panic in the Skies is the name of the movie." After looking it up, I see that I was wrong about one detail, it wasn't a midair collision or explosion, they were actually struck by lightning. It was an ordinary lightning strike that, for some reason, in this case, killed the pilot and co-pilot and damaged the equipment in the cockpit. Presumably the autopilot must have managed to survived and stayed on.
A user review on IMDb mentions the part about "a computer guy plugging his Laptop in to run the autopilot".
I believe that the name of the movie was Panic in the Skies. On the Amazon.com webpage on of the customer reviews mentions "a laptop controlling a 747," so that must be the film
Looking at the Amazon.com review, I see that I was slightly wrong about how they got into that situation. It says "a 747 filled with passengers is struck by lightning in mid-flight. The explosion kills the pilot and co-pilot and sends the airliner into a deadly nose dive." Of course, that adds another unrealistic detail to the story. Aircraft that have been hit by lightning usually survive without experiencing serious problems.
I don't think it was either of those two movies. There were no laptops when "Airport 75" was made and the description found in your link to the other movie doesn't sound right either. It was probably a made for TV movie which quite likely would not be available on DVD or VHS.
I probably saw the movie on TV somewhere back in the 1990s. I believe it must have been sometime after I took a digital electronics class in the early 1990s because I recall thinking of what they were doing in the movie from that technical perspective. I have seen several similar movies over the years, so it is hard to remember for sure which details were from which movie. His being able to control the jet from his laptop struck me as being one of the dumbest things I had ever seen on TV. That portion of the movie made the strongest impression on me and is the only part of the movie that I remember. The other parts of the movie just blend together with my memories of several other similar movies. I am especially unsure about part about what what happened to the cockpit and how they ended up in that situation. I believe I can still picture what the actor looks and have seen him in another movie. Perhaps I could look it up with that clue.
It is odd that no one else here seems to recall ever seeing the movie.
They also left out the Paper Man which was a good movie about hackers from 1971. That was made back before personal computers existed. In the movie a group of college students in a computer lab use a networked computer create a "paper man" and get a charge card in his name to temporarily help pay some of their bills. Somehow their paper man mysteriously seems to take on a life of his own and starts trying to kill them by causing computer controlled hardware such as elevators to malfunction. It even alters the dosage of a prescribed medication while one of them are in the hospital.
The movie shows old computer equipment such as reel-to-reel tape and punched cards being sorted or read in machines. I really enjoyed watching it on TV back in the early 1970's and found it to be very thought provoking. I thought about the movie some more when, shortly after that, I took an introductory "Programming in Basic" class at a Junior College. We didn't have monitors in the class, so whenever we typed in a command the results would loudly and rapidly be printed out on paper on the teletype in front of us. We were we all hooked up to the DEC System 10 computer along with a few other businesses around town who also timeshared on the same computer. It reminded me somewhat of the setup in the movie. That movie is over a decade older than any other hacking movie on this list. This was back before the average person had ever heard of hacking, identity theft or networks of computers. Modern audiences probably wouldn't be as impressed because the ideas are no longer novel or mysterious.
A number of years ago, I remember seeing a movie on TV where the cockpit of a large passenger jet was totally destroyed in a mid-air collision (or was it an explosion?). The pilot and co-pilot were dead and all of the controls, instruments and radios were destroyed so there was no way for the passengers to fly the jet. Fortunately, there was a bundle of wires hanging down into the passenger compartment and there was a geek with a laptop sitting nearby. He calmly explained that all he had to do was hook the wires to his laptop computer and he would be able to fly the jet from a program on his computer. When someone questioned whether he could really do that, he explained that of course he could do that because "he was from Silicon Valley." They safely landed the jet of course. What was that stupid movie called?
As I recall, he did not mention ever having worked with aircraft avionics equipment before, he was just an ordinary computer expert from Silicon Valley. They did not have radio contact with any experts on the ground and did not have access to any wiring diagrams or manuals. How likely is it that he would have been able grab some bundle of wires and within several hours get them hooked up and working with some program on his computer? Would those be some common type of wires using some common protocols that are well know outside the aviation industry? Perhaps he might have had to quickly use some boolean algebra to reverse engineer what the circuits were doing and then within several hours quickly write, debug and compile some C++ code and interface that with a flight simulator or game program on his computer. He is good!
As for non-computer movies, I recall seeing one where Arnold Schwartzeneger was being chased by dozens of solders with rifles. They shoot at him for about 10 seconds with their rifles as he is running and miss. Then he suddenly turns around and kills them all in 2 seconds with his machine gun. I have never been in the military and don't know much about guns, but supposedly dozens of trained solders with rifles were almost useless against one man with a machine gun.
As for Science fiction, I don't even know where to begin. In the old television series "Space 1999" a nuclear waste dump on the moon exploded with enough force to seen Earth's moon flying through space past a different solar system each week. The nearest star is over 4 light-years away, so the moon must have been traveling faster than the speed of light. Fortunately, the crew of the moon base survived the rapid acceleration.
On one of the various CSI type programs on TV, a crime was recorded by a security camera. They noticed a small reflection in on of the victims pupils so they zoomed in and enhanced the picture. There was the reflection of the killers face visible in the reflection. I have zoomed in on a few digital images on my computer and the image very quickly becomes a useless collection of large individual pixels. Who has security cameras that record at that kind of resolution?
They could also use OpenOffice instead, at least temporarily. There are also other free alternatives such as using Abiword to view Word documents that they receive from customers. Abiword a well known alternative for Linux computers, but I see they also have Windows and Mac versions too. I also see that Word 97 isn't on their list of affected software so perhaps businesses could also consider just use their old copies of Office 97 to view incoming documents for the next few weeks (or did they just neglect to mention any version of Word that old).
At home, I use OpenOffice running under Ubuntu Linux, so I should still be able to view Word documents safely.
Manipulating the genetics to get redder apples means that color will be even less of an indication of ripeness than it is now. The Delicious variety of apples in the grocery store are always bright red but usually not very good tasting. I once heard that the Delicious apples were bred more for color than taste. If I remember correctly, I also also once read about apples and possibly even salmon being gassed to alter color. Is that correct? I don't know if that is commonly done or not.
At least here in Arizona, I have noticed that the organic apples at a local health food store typically seem to taste slightly better than the ones at the grocery stores. Some (but not all) of those apples also say that they are locally grown. Some of the apples at the health food store seem to have more nicks and scars and less uniform coloring. Because of that I have been relying less on color or freedom from nicks and scars as any kind of indication of quality. I have been eating apples for about 50 years now and if I remember correctly, 30 years ago color was once a good indication of ripeness and quality.
At the health food store, they were recently also selling a very old variety of tomatoes from a long time ago that is rarely grown any more. That variety of tomatoes came in various shades of red, dull red, orange and yellow. Some even had slight greenish tinges, but they were good tasting for store bought tomatoes.
By the way, a local farm here, has been selling chickens and turkeys that were raised without hormones and given more room to wander around. They were also fresher because they were locally grown here in Arizona. They always tasted much better than the ones from the grocery stores. Unfortunately, in recent years, the government has reduced the water rights to the point that Young's Farm is going out of business. They took away more of their water rights, each year, even though they were a popular local attraction and had been farming there since 1947. Developers who purchased the land are planning to put a housing development on the land instead. They were the only ones that raised turkeys in Arizona.
Perhaps some computer users organization should start a "Fight the Spamers" fund drive to pay for his legal bills, if he is interested in such an offer to help continue the fight. There are enough people out there who are fed up with spam that a "Fight the Spamers" legal aid fund might be feasible. I would be willing to contribute if it is clear that a well know responsible organization is supervising the collecting of funds.
In important legal fights like this, I would hope that there might be some organizations out there who would consider helping to help make it possible for the little guy to stand up against better funded rivals. I am also thinking about legal situations such as where MPAA allegedly sued someone who has never owned a computer for illegally downloading music and that type of thing. Several years ago there was also SCO's threats to sue Linux users for infringing on their "intellectual property" rights. After several years of IBM, Novell and Red Hat fighting them in court it is becoming increasingly obvious that that their claims were totally bogus. Those companies have probably spent millions of dollars (and are still spending money) fighting SCOs false accusations. The average person could not afford to do that. Now that the SCO threat is fading away, Microsoft has starting to hint that Linux is infringing on their "intellectual property" rights. Their proxy, SCO, has failed to destroy Linux, so they, presumably, now realize they need to try to do the job themselves. They don't want to actually have to compete with a competitor such as Linux in a fair open-market free enterprise sort of way. If some small company with little money ever does get sued by Microsoft, I hope that other larger open-source using companies and individual users will take up a collection to help pay for a real legal fight.
I have also heard of a case or two of whistle blowers who exposed government corruption having up spending their life savings on lawyers. In these general kinds of situations, the little guy should be able to afford to fight for what is right. I am not sure what help might or might not be available, but they are fighting a legal fight that is important to the country as a whole, so taking up a collection to help them would seem reasonable. I would like to see some organization try to raise the funds needed to help this guy fight against spam. They could also try to get some media publicity to get attention to their need for contributions.
Yes, what license the documentation will be released under? Will the the information be licensed in a manner that is compatible with the GPL license used by most open source software such as Samba and Open Office? That is Microsoft's primary competition after all, so any interoperability information that is not compatible with the GPL license would be useless.
Will Microsoft also release updated interoperability information whever they decide to break compatibility with the methods they have described in these documents?
Yes, Hedy Lamarr also deserves to be mentioned because she was the actress who invented frequency-hopping spread spectrum radio technology. During WWII, with the help of Peter Antheil, she worked on using a frequency-hopping radio to create a jam resistant control system for "guided" torpedoes.
Before that, as a teenager, she made headlines and shocked Europe by doing few nude scenes in the Czech film, "Ecstasy". She later married a merchant who was selling munitions to Germany. She did learn some about technology from him, but he was a very controlling person who watched her all the time. During an evening party she drugged her maid and escaped to London. She then signed a contract with MGM and became a movie star who starred opposite leading men such as Charles Boyer, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, and Victor Mature.
She met George Antheil at a Hollywood party and the next day they discussed what they could do to stop Hitler. With his knowledge of player pianos, they worked together to develop a guidance system for torpedoes that could not easily be jammed. She also helped raise money for war bonds by selling kisses for $50,000 per smack. After their patent expired in the 1950's Sylvania "re-discovered" frequency-hopping and called it spread-spectrum. Today many pagers, cellphones and other devices use spread-spectrum technology. If I am not mistaken, it is also used in 802.11b/g wireless networking for computers. Here are a couple of links about her:
My understanding is that WPA is very secure a good quality password is used, the longer and more random the better. The security oriented Gibson Research Corporation webpage has a "Perfect Password Generator" that generates a new totally random maximum-length 63 or 64 character password every time someone visits their webpage or clicks refresh. Of course the connection to their "Perfect Password Generator" is encrypted. On their weekly show about computer security episode 11 was about "Bad WiFi Security" and episode 13 was about "Unbreakable WiFi Security". I download the MP3 versions of the two episodes a few months ago. They also said that security measures such as disabling the broadcast off SSIDs and using MAC address filtering are really not as effective as most people think. They also mentioned that WEP is a hopelessly flawed standard that is easily broken using free software tools that can be downloaded from the Internet.
My new DSL modem/router that I got from the telephone company has a built in wireless router. By default it had WEP encryption enabled. I changed it to use WPA pre-shared key instead. I wasn't able to get cable where I live, but when talking to the local cable company, they told me that their wireless routers are open to everyone by default. Of course that can be changed. Up until a couple of weeks ago there were no high-speed Internet connections available where I live. I got a new 1.5 Mbps DSL connection from the telephone company as soon as it became available. It is a nice change from the 26.4K dial-up.
Another nice security tool on the Gibson Research Corporation website is found by clicking on the "ShieldsUp" link and then selecting to option to have "All Service Ports" scanned. It will then probe a person's firewall for open ports.
I live in Arizona and for years have been trying to get a high-speed Internet connection, but only 26.4 K dial-up was available. Last week DSL finally became available from the telephone company and I am now enjoying my new 1.5 Mbs DSL connection. It is a wonderful improvement over 26.4K dial-up. In my neighborhood, 56K modems had only been able to connect at 26.4K and DSL was not available. I had not been able to get either cable or DSL even though I have had to watch their advertisements for both products on TV.
On several occasions, I tried to order a 256K high-speed wireless connection from a local Internet provider, but according to their computer reception would not be possible at my address. I mentioned that my neighbor 50 feet away has one of their antennas on his roof and is successfully connected, but she was still reluctant to send someone to my address. My roof has just as good of a view of the nearby hilltops as his, but after several telephone calls and a couple of months time, they never did send anyone out to check. Fortunately, DSL finally became available instead so and last week several of my neighbors and I are now celebrating our new high-speed Internet connections.
I live in a city of about 50,000 people, not in a rural area, so I don't really understand what the problem was. From where I live, I look outside and can see nearby an airport, a private University, a hospital, a shopping center, and a golf course with an expensive gated community nearby. I am not a rural customer out in the middle of nowhere.
Over the last few years I have taken several computer courses at a Junior College, in which part of the study material was offered on-line. I had choose between downloading the graphics intense study material or driving over to the college which, fortunately, was only several miles away.
I am a Republican and for the last several years I have been quite concerned about the security problems with voting machines made by Diebold and several other companies. The unending series of unacceptable security problems with Diebold voting machines seems to be much than some kind of normal partisan bickering. To me, the integrity of our democratic voting process is something that goes far beyond the question of my party preferences. I suspect that anyone who dismisses the issue that way has most likely not really bothered to read up on the subject.
Several years ago, Bev Harris of documented some the problems in the free PDF book on her website. Several of the later chapters in the book describe what they found after the actual Diebold software and source code was download by various people from an unsecured Diebold FTP server. Another good source of information by someone who as also examined the Diebold software and source code is the book "Brave New Ballot" by Aviel D. Rubin. He is a computer scientist at Johns Hopkins University who is a specialist in systems security. I doubt that anyone who has read either of those books would dismiss the subject so lightly. I have only read portions of the two books so far.
I am a Republican who has voted for the well known Barry Goldwater for Senator several times in the past back in the 1970s and 1980s. I am an fiscal conservative / social moderate which is almost the opposite type of Republican that George Bush is. People like me don't really have a party that represents our views any more. Neither party seems to represent the views of fiscal conservatives who are not part of the religious right. However, I am still unenthusiastic about the idea of voting for Democrats.
Back in 2000, I watched on live TV, as officials examined ballots with hanging chads in Florida. As someone who has had a few programming and networking courses, the very idea of computerized voting machines made me uneasy. How I could trust the counting of ballots with secret proprietary software running on a Windows box? That was before I even heard of the problems with the Diebold machines.
They do use voting machines where I live but at least those machines do print out a stub that I get to view before it goes into a sealed ballot box for possible use if a recount is needed. Most voting machines do not have that feature so a "real" recount is not possible. I won't get to see the HBO documentary because I don't have cable HBO doesn't come in on my TV's rabbit ears antenna.
I have gone back to using the old fashined double-edged safety razors with replaceable blades. That is how I originally learned to shave back in the early 1970s. It is the same shaving technology that my dad used. For a while, I switched to the disposable double and later triple blades, but I finally went back to using the old double-edged razor blades. It only costs about 45 cents per week to shave with those. Each edge of a double-edged safety razor is good for several days and since there are two sides to a double-edged safety razor, each blade lasts for about 1 week. The used blades are stored in the back side of the tiny little 10-blade plasic package of so very little space is required used by them in the garbage can or the local landfill.
I have the best results when using the slightly more expensive Feather or Merkur blades than when using the ones that I get at the local supermarket or drugstore. The slightly more expensive blades are the ones that cost about 45 cents per week. I no longer have my old Gillete razor so I have been using the Merkur "Long Classic" Open-Comb razor instead. I have been getting a very good shave this last year or so with that combination.
My gradfather used even older technology, he used a straight-edged razor which he would keep sharp by stropping and honing. I don't plan to go back to doing it that way though.
How about these election returns for the conservative mostly republican areas around the country:
Democrats 86%
Communist 6%
Libertarian 4%
Republicans 3%
Greens 1%
These would be the results from the mostly Democratic inner-city areas:
Republican 91%
Libertarian 7%
Greens 2%
Democrats 1%
Most other parts of the country would get these results:
Libertarian 55%
Communist 20%
Democrat 15%
Greens 7%
Republicans 3%
The combined final totals might show a Libertarian president and Libertarians controlling both houses of Congress. Those unexpected results would only occur where computerized voting machines were used, not where paper ballots or older types of voting machines were used.
A smaller percentage of the voting machines do print out paper stubs which go into a ballot box to allow a manual recount. A manual recount of the printed stubs on those machines would show results that had no resemblance to the electronic totals.
Slashdot Mirror
I use the AMD-64 version of Ubuntu/Kubuntu Linux at home and use Windows XP in a small business at work. Both operating systems seem to be about equally easy to use. Installing and properly configuring Ubuntu was much easier than with earlier versions of Linux that I had used a few years ago. It correctly identified all my hardware with the exception for having to use a GUI to select the correct printer driver. It automatically found my DSL modem and automatically connected me to the Internet. Whenever I insert a USB Flash drive or a CD, an icon for that device appears on the screen (like Windows). There are easy to use point and click GUIs for configuring things. It is not only easier to install and use but feels much more polished and refined than the older versions of Linux. So the Linux desktop is getting better.
When downloading new software, I use either Synaptic or Adept which are easy to use GUI front-ends to the apt-get package manager. I then select a program from the the amazing list of available free programs. Then after about a minute or so the free program has been downloaded and installed. To get new software for Windows XP, I typically need to drive to town, pay for the software, agree to the the stern threatening terms of the EULA, perhaps respond to a pop-up warning from my firewall, and then enter the activation code. With Windows software, I frequently also discover that other software I hadn't asked for was also installed. With Ubuntu Linux removing software with Synaptic or Adept is just as quick and easy.
The typical Linux desktop applications have also improved noticeably over the last few year. Five years ago, the typical Linux application had all the necessary essential features but did not seem like full featured commercial quality software. Now most of the major free Linux applications seems mature and full featured and equal to commercial software. Linux has never had a problem with viruses or spyware, so I don't need to bother with downloading virus signatures or scanning for viruses and spyware. When I had to reinstall Windows 2000 on a computer, I had to first spend about 10 hours looking for the original installation CD before I could even get started. With any version of Linux I would have just downloaded the free iso and burned a CD.
I realize that most commercial games are not offered in Linux versions. I am not a gamer so for me that doesn't matter to me. Some popular industry standard programs such as AutoCAD and Microsoft Office do not come in Linux versions but as a home user, I don't really care about that either. Most companies don't bother writing any Linux drivers themselves, so inevitably there is some hardware out there that is not supported in Linux. Perhaps, as the author suggests, KDE and Gnome developers should get moving, but at the moment I am a happy Linux user. Besides, for me, it isn't purely about who has the latest and greatest new features. I don't want to have to deal with Windows product activation or licensing issues. I recently heard a commercial on late-night talk radio where the Business Software Alliance (BSA) was encouraging people to call them to get a reward for reporting the use of unlicensed software by their employeers. They said that each violation could cost a company $150,000 per seat. I have read elsewhere, that just using licensed versions of Windows and Office and the original installation CD is not always enough to be avoid being accused of software piracy. They must also be able to find records showing where and when they purchased the software. I feel much more comfortable just using Linux instead and knowing that I have the freedom to use it however and wherever I please.
Most people have never even heard of Linux, and even if it is free and getting better all the time, I don't expect many people to give it a try anytime soon. There will continue to be a passionately loyal group of Linux desktop users. I value my freedom too much to even consider using Windows on my main home computer.
Several years ago, I used the Textmaker wordprocessor and the Planmaker spreadsheet on my old 266 MHz Pentium II. They are both now part of SoftMaker Office. The computer could dual-boot between Windows and Linux, so I used a version of Textmaker and Planmaker in each OS. Textmaker and Planmaker would start up in about a second or two, while OpenOffice would take about 40 seconds. Other Linux wordprocessors such as Abiword, Gnumeric and KOffice also opened up quickly on that computer. I also used the Codeweavers CrossoverOffice (now known as Crossover Wine) to run Office 97 under Linux. Office 97 was fast too. Only OpenOffice seemed to be so bloated, although it performed well and was nice once it finally eventually finished loading.
On the computer that I use now, I have a 2.2 GHz AMD 64 3800+ processor and OpenOffice opens up in about 9 seconds which is OK, I guess. Abiword or Gnumeric opens up in about 2 seconds. I am not sure if I will bother trying Softmaker Office on this computer or not.
Several years ago I got stuck with the unpaid job of doing a monthly newsletter for a small singles club. It was several pages long in multi-column format with clipart and photos. At one time or another I had used Microsoft Word 97, Microsoft Publisher, OpenOffice and Textmaker to do the newsletter. Of those choices, I found Word 97 to be the hardest to use. For one thing it was the only one that did not have frames. Without frames pictures and everything kept moving around whenever I edited anything. Sometimes I would backspace or delete a line and then the size of text in a nearby paragraph would also unexpectedly change. At times, the spacing would change slightly when I had created the newsletter on one computer and then later tried to print it out on another computer with a different version of Word, different printer and different printer driver. I never did like doing the newsletter with Word, but was quite happy doing it at various times with Microsoft Publisher, OpenOffice Writer and Textmaker. I never did reach a final decision about which of those other choices was best. I finally gave my unpaid job of doing the newsletter to someone else.
On several occasions, I have recently gone into a couple of local banks and while I was standing in line, I noticed the words "Windows 2000" on their screen savers. I have noticed the same thing at several other business as well. Apparently many businesses that have not felt the need to upgrade.
I forgot to mention an article from earlier this year, that talks about the European Commission's decision to fine Microsoft because of their lack of compliance with the courts decision that they should make interoperability information available to competitors as a necessary precondition to allow fair competition. Here is a link to info about that:
FSF Europe's Statement on the EU Commission Fine on Microsoft
Here is an article that mentions BeOS as an example of Micorosoft's anticompetitive practices:
Iowa Antitrust Litigation Update
I have always had an interest in free software and alternative operating systems. Back in the 1990s, I heard about an interesting innovative operating system called BeOS. BeOS expressed a desire to peacefully coexist with Microsoft. Microsoft applied pressure to computer companies to not sell any computers with BeOS pre-installed, so BeOS went out of Business.
A few years earlier, in the 1990s, a company come out with their own DOS clone. From what I have heard, the Microsoft programmers designed some of the Microsoft products to give error messages when running under the DOS clone even when there really was not a problem.
Once Microsoft gained dominance they tried to squeeze out alternatives my fighting against open standards. They prefer to use proprietary standards instead. On various occasions they have also tried to take open standard and add proprietary extensions to them. That strategy is called extend, embrace and extinguish. Microsoft almost missed the Internet while promoting it's own proprietary alternatives. It almost missed the boat on that and Bill Gates quickly changed course. The Internet was created with open standards such as TCP/IP and HTML. Netscape was the dominate browser back then and the browser, to a large extent, controls what standards are used. If I remember correctly, I once read that Netscape even dared to publicly make some statements about the browser making the choice of operating system less significant. So somehow Microsoft had to destroy Netscape, perhaps, so that they could better influence what standards are used.
According to a website, "Lacking any decent technology of their own, Microsoft licensed the Mosaic web browser from Spyglass which they turned into Internet Explorer." That website then gos on to say "Microsoft royally screwed over Spyglass by licensing their code and then turning around and giving it away for free." By including it for free, pre-installed with Windows they destroyed Netscape and Spyglass. Since then Internet Explorer has become the dominant browser and is the only browser that in not standards compliant.
Sun Microsystems, developed Java a programming language what would allow programmer to create programs that are operating system dependent. Micrsoft bought a license for Java, from Sun, and then tried to add their own proprietary extensions to Java. Sun successfully sued them for violating the terms of the license.
The political fight against the effort to use open-standards such as ODF in Mass is another example. Microsoft prefers to keep their Open Office users locked-in with proprietary standards such as Office 12 XML instead.
About 6 or 7 years ago I stated using Linux which is a free open-source Unix clone operating system. There weren't many big advantages over Windows other than that Linux users didn't get computer viruses or infected by email mail attachments. It somehow more like I was more in control of what was installed on my computer and how it was configured. Furthermore, the GPL license allowed me to freely copy Linux and most of my free Linux programs from one computer to another. I no longer felt big brother Bill looking over my shoulder.
Since then, I Linux has improved to where Ubuntu Linux feels very polished complete and easy to use and install. Whenever I want some new program, I just use Synaptic to choose from the list of thousands of free programs and quickly download whatever free GPL licensed program that I want. I am totally happy with Ubuntu Linux.
Back about 5 or 6 years ago, I was still using Windows ME and Office 2000 on one of my computers. That computer had what I later realized was a slightly bad power supply
That is how we did it back in the early 1970s when I was driving a Jeep in a blindfolded off-road race. The drivers were blindfolded and a navigator in the passenger seat had to tell the driver which way to turn or when to stop. It was a small 4 wheel drive club that had a low speed off-road race. I came in second because the girl who was my co-pilot and I agreed ahead of time exactly what phrases such as "slightly to the left" or "hard left" meant. The vehicles were all in low range going slowly and one vehicle at a time. The one with the best time one. One person ran into a tree while traveling at about 1 MPH, but no damage was done to his SUV or the tree. The person who laid out the course won with his wife acting as navigator. I do have excellent eyesight, I was just blindfolded at the time.
This is not to say that I am wildly fond of the idea of blind people shooting (maybe it's ok). As a teenager, in Southern California, I had already been shot at by a hunter who shot at everything that he heard or saw move. I was about 200 feet from the garage for our house and about 30 feet from our small well building. I stumbled over some broken glass and as I landed on the ground, a hunter started shooting towards me but missed. I'm not sure if he ever saw what he was shooting at or not. I won't bother with the other details. Suffice it to say that, when someone is hunting without permission on private property, 200 feet from the owners house, they should not be shooting in the direction of buildings while while firing carelessly at every sound or movement they hear in the brush. Our house was clearly visible above me on the hilltop. Unbelievably, I also had a similar experience when the neighbors grade school age boy almost shoot me with his BB rifle. In that case, he too, was aiming roughly in the direction of our nearly house.
That is not intended as criticism of responsible careful hunters. But, after those two experiences, it took a number of years for me get over my anger at hunters. It didn't help when on one occasion, my dog, and on another occasion the neighbors dog got caught in steel jawed traps which had been set for coyotes not far from our houses. That was back in the late 1960s. He never did catch any coyotes, just two neighborhood dogs. Idiots like that give hunting a bad name.
Looking at some other posts, I see someone else has a simpler idea. He suggested hooking one of these freeze alarms to your telephone line:
FA-B-CCA - Freeze AlarmRELIANCE CONTROLS PhoneAlert Three-alarm Home Monitoring System
Make sure that the web cam can also see what is on the floor too. He could watch for puddles of water on the floor from a broken pipe or leaky roof. He could also see if rat droppings are starting to appear on the floor. Thousands of rat droppings on the carpeting and furniture would be a real mess. I have seen that happen in a car and in a truck. He might even see a rat or mouse on the web cam now and then. Perhaps he might even catch a glimpse of a burglar. The thermometer should have a large easy to read display.
Be sure to also remove food from the refrigerator before leaving. I have seen a refrigerator that failed while someone was gone and thousands of maggots ended up crawling up the sides of the refrigerator and died stuck to the walls, shelves, roof, drawers and crevices of the refrigerator. Two other people told me that have seen the same thing. It was unbelievably disgusting, so take the food out before leaving for a few months.
I am not sure about houses, but draining the water pipes would not be adequate to protect against freezing because on horizontal pipes there can be low sections that still remain full of water. People that own motor homes and trailers know that they need to do more than just drain the water to properly winterize an unoccupied trailer. With an RV they usually drain the water and then (if I am not mistaken) somehow blow propelyneglycol antifreeze through the pipes. They also do some kind of bypass to the water heater. Propelyneglycol antifreeze is used because it is less toxic than ethylyneglycol antifreeze.
I know you are talking about a house, but in the case of an RV it is not necessary to winterize it when someone is living in the RV. As long as the heat is on at least slightly, the pipes won't freeze. On the water hose coming into a trailer they usually wrap it with an electric heat tape and split-foam insulation. Most heat tapes say not to use them on anything other than metal pipes, but people do that anyway. I am not sure about houses. I live in Arizona and am not an expert on cold weather although I do live up in the mountains.
Perhaps you could set up a Apache webpage server with a webcam pointed at a large thermometer on the wall. Make sure that you set it up so that you can also see if any water is running along the floor or if of rat droppings are starting to appear on the floor. Then you could go to your webpage everyday to see what the temperature is. On the webpage don't tell everyone that this is my unoccupied house at a certain address which perhaps has valuables inside. Perhaps passwords or VPN technolgy could be used to limit access to the webpage. Somehow I doubt that is how most people in places like Minnesota do it though
I recently noticed a large puddle of water in front of an unoccupied nearby small business building. When I looked closer I saw water running from under the front door. We had had our first cold weather the day before, so their pipes must have frozen. I left a message on the owners answering machine.
Don't forget about rats. In my neighborhood, I have seen what rats can do to old cars and trucks that are not being used regularly. A few months go by and then the owner looks inside and see the carpeting covered with thousands of rat droppings. Perhaps some rat poison in an abandoned house or car might help.
"Panic in the Skies is the name of the movie." After looking it up, I see that I was wrong about one detail, it wasn't a midair collision or explosion, they were actually struck by lightning. It was an ordinary lightning strike that, for some reason, in this case, killed the pilot and co-pilot and damaged the equipment in the cockpit. Presumably the autopilot must have managed to survived and stayed on.
A user review on IMDb mentions the part about "a computer guy plugging his Laptop in to run the autopilot".
I believe that the name of the movie was Panic in the Skies. On the Amazon.com webpage on of the customer reviews mentions "a laptop controlling a 747," so that must be the film
Looking at the Amazon.com review, I see that I was slightly wrong about how they got into that situation. It says "a 747 filled with passengers is struck by lightning in mid-flight. The explosion kills the pilot and co-pilot and sends the airliner into a deadly nose dive." Of course, that adds another unrealistic detail to the story. Aircraft that have been hit by lightning usually survive without experiencing serious problems.
I don't think it was either of those two movies. There were no laptops when "Airport 75" was made and the description found in your link to the other movie doesn't sound right either. It was probably a made for TV movie which quite likely would not be available on DVD or VHS.
I probably saw the movie on TV somewhere back in the 1990s. I believe it must have been sometime after I took a digital electronics class in the early 1990s because I recall thinking of what they were doing in the movie from that technical perspective. I have seen several similar movies over the years, so it is hard to remember for sure which details were from which movie. His being able to control the jet from his laptop struck me as being one of the dumbest things I had ever seen on TV. That portion of the movie made the strongest impression on me and is the only part of the movie that I remember. The other parts of the movie just blend together with my memories of several other similar movies. I am especially unsure about part about what what happened to the cockpit and how they ended up in that situation. I believe I can still picture what the actor looks and have seen him in another movie. Perhaps I could look it up with that clue.
It is odd that no one else here seems to recall ever seeing the movie.
They also left out the Paper Man which was a good movie about hackers from 1971. That was made back before personal computers existed. In the movie a group of college students in a computer lab use a networked computer create a "paper man" and get a charge card in his name to temporarily help pay some of their bills. Somehow their paper man mysteriously seems to take on a life of his own and starts trying to kill them by causing computer controlled hardware such as elevators to malfunction. It even alters the dosage of a prescribed medication while one of them are in the hospital.
The movie shows old computer equipment such as reel-to-reel tape and punched cards being sorted or read in machines. I really enjoyed watching it on TV back in the early 1970's and found it to be very thought provoking. I thought about the movie some more when, shortly after that, I took an introductory "Programming in Basic" class at a Junior College. We didn't have monitors in the class, so whenever we typed in a command the results would loudly and rapidly be printed out on paper on the teletype in front of us. We were we all hooked up to the DEC System 10 computer along with a few other businesses around town who also timeshared on the same computer. It reminded me somewhat of the setup in the movie. That movie is over a decade older than any other hacking movie on this list. This was back before the average person had ever heard of hacking, identity theft or networks of computers. Modern audiences probably wouldn't be as impressed because the ideas are no longer novel or mysterious.
A number of years ago, I remember seeing a movie on TV where the cockpit of a large passenger jet was totally destroyed in a mid-air collision (or was it an explosion?). The pilot and co-pilot were dead and all of the controls, instruments and radios were destroyed so there was no way for the passengers to fly the jet. Fortunately, there was a bundle of wires hanging down into the passenger compartment and there was a geek with a laptop sitting nearby. He calmly explained that all he had to do was hook the wires to his laptop computer and he would be able to fly the jet from a program on his computer. When someone questioned whether he could really do that, he explained that of course he could do that because "he was from Silicon Valley." They safely landed the jet of course. What was that stupid movie called?
As I recall, he did not mention ever having worked with aircraft avionics equipment before, he was just an ordinary computer expert from Silicon Valley. They did not have radio contact with any experts on the ground and did not have access to any wiring diagrams or manuals. How likely is it that he would have been able grab some bundle of wires and within several hours get them hooked up and working with some program on his computer? Would those be some common type of wires using some common protocols that are well know outside the aviation industry? Perhaps he might have had to quickly use some boolean algebra to reverse engineer what the circuits were doing and then within several hours quickly write, debug and compile some C++ code and interface that with a flight simulator or game program on his computer. He is good!
As for non-computer movies, I recall seeing one where Arnold Schwartzeneger was being chased by dozens of solders with rifles. They shoot at him for about 10 seconds with their rifles as he is running and miss. Then he suddenly turns around and kills them all in 2 seconds with his machine gun. I have never been in the military and don't know much about guns, but supposedly dozens of trained solders with rifles were almost useless against one man with a machine gun.
As for Science fiction, I don't even know where to begin. In the old television series "Space 1999" a nuclear waste dump on the moon exploded with enough force to seen Earth's moon flying through space past a different solar system each week. The nearest star is over 4 light-years away, so the moon must have been traveling faster than the speed of light. Fortunately, the crew of the moon base survived the rapid acceleration.
On one of the various CSI type programs on TV, a crime was recorded by a security camera. They noticed a small reflection in on of the victims pupils so they zoomed in and enhanced the picture. There was the reflection of the killers face visible in the reflection. I have zoomed in on a few digital images on my computer and the image very quickly becomes a useless collection of large individual pixels. Who has security cameras that record at that kind of resolution?
They could also use OpenOffice instead, at least temporarily. There are also other free alternatives such as using Abiword to view Word documents that they receive from customers. Abiword a well known alternative for Linux computers, but I see they also have Windows and Mac versions too. I also see that Word 97 isn't on their list of affected software so perhaps businesses could also consider just use their old copies of Office 97 to view incoming documents for the next few weeks (or did they just neglect to mention any version of Word that old).
At home, I use OpenOffice running under Ubuntu Linux, so I should still be able to view Word documents safely.
Manipulating the genetics to get redder apples means that color will be even less of an indication of ripeness than it is now. The Delicious variety of apples in the grocery store are always bright red but usually not very good tasting. I once heard that the Delicious apples were bred more for color than taste. If I remember correctly, I also also once read about apples and possibly even salmon being gassed to alter color. Is that correct? I don't know if that is commonly done or not.
At least here in Arizona, I have noticed that the organic apples at a local health food store typically seem to taste slightly better than the ones at the grocery stores. Some (but not all) of those apples also say that they are locally grown. Some of the apples at the health food store seem to have more nicks and scars and less uniform coloring. Because of that I have been relying less on color or freedom from nicks and scars as any kind of indication of quality. I have been eating apples for about 50 years now and if I remember correctly, 30 years ago color was once a good indication of ripeness and quality.
At the health food store, they were recently also selling a very old variety of tomatoes from a long time ago that is rarely grown any more. That variety of tomatoes came in various shades of red, dull red, orange and yellow. Some even had slight greenish tinges, but they were good tasting for store bought tomatoes.
By the way, a local farm here, has been selling chickens and turkeys that were raised without hormones and given more room to wander around. They were also fresher because they were locally grown here in Arizona. They always tasted much better than the ones from the grocery stores. Unfortunately, in recent years, the government has reduced the water rights to the point that Young's Farm is going out of business. They took away more of their water rights, each year, even though they were a popular local attraction and had been farming there since 1947. Developers who purchased the land are planning to put a housing development on the land instead. They were the only ones that raised turkeys in Arizona.
Perhaps some computer users organization should start a "Fight the Spamers" fund drive to pay for his legal bills, if he is interested in such an offer to help continue the fight. There are enough people out there who are fed up with spam that a "Fight the Spamers" legal aid fund might be feasible. I would be willing to contribute if it is clear that a well know responsible organization is supervising the collecting of funds.
In important legal fights like this, I would hope that there might be some organizations out there who would consider helping to help make it possible for the little guy to stand up against better funded rivals. I am also thinking about legal situations such as where MPAA allegedly sued someone who has never owned a computer for illegally downloading music and that type of thing. Several years ago there was also SCO's threats to sue Linux users for infringing on their "intellectual property" rights. After several years of IBM, Novell and Red Hat fighting them in court it is becoming increasingly obvious that that their claims were totally bogus. Those companies have probably spent millions of dollars (and are still spending money) fighting SCOs false accusations. The average person could not afford to do that. Now that the SCO threat is fading away, Microsoft has starting to hint that Linux is infringing on their "intellectual property" rights. Their proxy, SCO, has failed to destroy Linux, so they, presumably, now realize they need to try to do the job themselves. They don't want to actually have to compete with a competitor such as Linux in a fair open-market free enterprise sort of way. If some small company with little money ever does get sued by Microsoft, I hope that other larger open-source using companies and individual users will take up a collection to help pay for a real legal fight.
I have also heard of a case or two of whistle blowers who exposed government corruption having up spending their life savings on lawyers. In these general kinds of situations, the little guy should be able to afford to fight for what is right. I am not sure what help might or might not be available, but they are fighting a legal fight that is important to the country as a whole, so taking up a collection to help them would seem reasonable. I would like to see some organization try to raise the funds needed to help this guy fight against spam. They could also try to get some media publicity to get attention to their need for contributions.
Yes, what license the documentation will be released under? Will the the information be licensed in a manner that is compatible with the GPL license used by most open source software such as Samba and Open Office? That is Microsoft's primary competition after all, so any interoperability information that is not compatible with the GPL license would be useless.
Will Microsoft also release updated interoperability information whever they decide to break compatibility with the methods they have described in these documents?
Yes, Hedy Lamarr also deserves to be mentioned because she was the actress who invented frequency-hopping spread spectrum radio technology. During WWII, with the help of Peter Antheil, she worked on using a frequency-hopping radio to create a jam resistant control system for "guided" torpedoes.
Before that, as a teenager, she made headlines and shocked Europe by doing few nude scenes in the Czech film, "Ecstasy". She later married a merchant who was selling munitions to Germany. She did learn some about technology from him, but he was a very controlling person who watched her all the time. During an evening party she drugged her maid and escaped to London. She then signed a contract with MGM and became a movie star who starred opposite leading men such as Charles Boyer, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, and Victor Mature.
She met George Antheil at a Hollywood party and the next day they discussed what they could do to stop Hitler. With his knowledge of player pianos, they worked together to develop a guidance system for torpedoes that could not easily be jammed. She also helped raise money for war bonds by selling kisses for $50,000 per smack. After their patent expired in the 1950's Sylvania "re-discovered" frequency-hopping and called it spread-spectrum. Today many pagers, cellphones and other devices use spread-spectrum technology. If I am not mistaken, it is also used in 802.11b/g wireless networking for computers. Here are a couple of links about her:
The Inventor of Frequency Hopping, a web technology
The birth of spread spectrum
My understanding is that WPA is very secure a good quality password is used, the longer and more random the better. The security oriented Gibson Research Corporation webpage has a "Perfect Password Generator" that generates a new totally random maximum-length 63 or 64 character password every time someone visits their webpage or clicks refresh. Of course the connection to their "Perfect Password Generator" is encrypted. On their weekly show about computer security episode 11 was about "Bad WiFi Security" and episode 13 was about "Unbreakable WiFi Security". I download the MP3 versions of the two episodes a few months ago. They also said that security measures such as disabling the broadcast off SSIDs and using MAC address filtering are really not as effective as most people think. They also mentioned that WEP is a hopelessly flawed standard that is easily broken using free software tools that can be downloaded from the Internet.
My new DSL modem/router that I got from the telephone company has a built in wireless router. By default it had WEP encryption enabled. I changed it to use WPA pre-shared key instead. I wasn't able to get cable where I live, but when talking to the local cable company, they told me that their wireless routers are open to everyone by default. Of course that can be changed. Up until a couple of weeks ago there were no high-speed Internet connections available where I live. I got a new 1.5 Mbps DSL connection from the telephone company as soon as it became available. It is a nice change from the 26.4K dial-up.
Another nice security tool on the Gibson Research Corporation website is found by clicking on the "ShieldsUp" link and then selecting to option to have "All Service Ports" scanned. It will then probe a person's firewall for open ports.
I live in Arizona and for years have been trying to get a high-speed Internet connection, but only 26.4 K dial-up was available. Last week DSL finally became available from the telephone company and I am now enjoying my new 1.5 Mbs DSL connection. It is a wonderful improvement over 26.4K dial-up. In my neighborhood, 56K modems had only been able to connect at 26.4K and DSL was not available. I had not been able to get either cable or DSL even though I have had to watch their advertisements for both products on TV.
On several occasions, I tried to order a 256K high-speed wireless connection from a local Internet provider, but according to their computer reception would not be possible at my address. I mentioned that my neighbor 50 feet away has one of their antennas on his roof and is successfully connected, but she was still reluctant to send someone to my address. My roof has just as good of a view of the nearby hilltops as his, but after several telephone calls and a couple of months time, they never did send anyone out to check. Fortunately, DSL finally became available instead so and last week several of my neighbors and I are now celebrating our new high-speed Internet connections.
I live in a city of about 50,000 people, not in a rural area, so I don't really understand what the problem was. From where I live, I look outside and can see nearby an airport, a private University, a hospital, a shopping center, and a golf course with an expensive gated community nearby. I am not a rural customer out in the middle of nowhere.
Over the last few years I have taken several computer courses at a Junior College, in which part of the study material was offered on-line. I had choose between downloading the graphics intense study material or driving over to the college which, fortunately, was only several miles away.
I am a Republican and for the last several years I have been quite concerned about the security problems with voting machines made by Diebold and several other companies. The unending series of unacceptable security problems with Diebold voting machines seems to be much than some kind of normal partisan bickering. To me, the integrity of our democratic voting process is something that goes far beyond the question of my party preferences. I suspect that anyone who dismisses the issue that way has most likely not really bothered to read up on the subject.
Several years ago, Bev Harris of documented some the problems in the free PDF book on her website. Several of the later chapters in the book describe what they found after the actual Diebold software and source code was download by various people from an unsecured Diebold FTP server. Another good source of information by someone who as also examined the Diebold software and source code is the book "Brave New Ballot" by Aviel D. Rubin. He is a computer scientist at Johns Hopkins University who is a specialist in systems security. I doubt that anyone who has read either of those books would dismiss the subject so lightly. I have only read portions of the two books so far.
I am a Republican who has voted for the well known Barry Goldwater for Senator several times in the past back in the 1970s and 1980s. I am an fiscal conservative / social moderate which is almost the opposite type of Republican that George Bush is. People like me don't really have a party that represents our views any more. Neither party seems to represent the views of fiscal conservatives who are not part of the religious right. However, I am still unenthusiastic about the idea of voting for Democrats.
Back in 2000, I watched on live TV, as officials examined ballots with hanging chads in Florida. As someone who has had a few programming and networking courses, the very idea of computerized voting machines made me uneasy. How I could trust the counting of ballots with secret proprietary software running on a Windows box? That was before I even heard of the problems with the Diebold machines.
They do use voting machines where I live but at least those machines do print out a stub that I get to view before it goes into a sealed ballot box for possible use if a recount is needed. Most voting machines do not have that feature so a "real" recount is not possible. I won't get to see the HBO documentary because I don't have cable HBO doesn't come in on my TV's rabbit ears antenna.
I have gone back to using the old fashined double-edged safety razors with replaceable blades. That is how I originally learned to shave back in the early 1970s. It is the same shaving technology that my dad used. For a while, I switched to the disposable double and later triple blades, but I finally went back to using the old double-edged razor blades. It only costs about 45 cents per week to shave with those. Each edge of a double-edged safety razor is good for several days and since there are two sides to a double-edged safety razor, each blade lasts for about 1 week. The used blades are stored in the back side of the tiny little 10-blade plasic package of so very little space is required used by them in the garbage can or the local landfill.
I have the best results when using the slightly more expensive Feather or Merkur blades than when using the ones that I get at the local supermarket or drugstore. The slightly more expensive blades are the ones that cost about 45 cents per week. I no longer have my old Gillete razor so I have been using the Merkur "Long Classic" Open-Comb razor instead. I have been getting a very good shave this last year or so with that combination.
My gradfather used even older technology, he used a straight-edged razor which he would keep sharp by stropping and honing. I don't plan to go back to doing it that way though.
- Democrats 86%
- Communist 6%
- Libertarian 4%
- Republicans 3%
- Greens 1%
These would be the results from the mostly Democratic inner-city areas:- Republican 91%
- Libertarian 7%
- Greens 2%
- Democrats 1%
Most other parts of the country would get these results:The combined final totals might show a Libertarian president and Libertarians controlling both houses of Congress. Those unexpected results would only occur where computerized voting machines were used, not where paper ballots or older types of voting machines were used.
A smaller percentage of the voting machines do print out paper stubs which go into a ballot box to allow a manual recount. A manual recount of the printed stubs on those machines would show results that had no resemblance to the electronic totals.